Mary Reed McCall (22 page)

“I love you, Gwynne ap Moran,” he whispered a moment later, his voice husky as he paused to lean his forehead against her. “God help me, but I’ve always loved you.”

Her heart leapt at his words, her eyes stinging with the sweetness of his admission. So long…she’d waited so long to hear him say that to her, only she’d never known it.
But it was
him
—it was Aidan her heart had been waiting for, searching for, all along. He was the missing piece of her soul, and being with him here and now, with all of her memories regained, she finally felt complete.

“I love you too, Aidan de Brice,” she said, her throat aching with bittersweet joy as she repeated some of her original vows to him. “With all that I am, I love you and only you, until I die.”

He cradled her face in his palms as he gazed down at her. The sun cast his face in shadow, his dark hair brushing the fine, aristocratic tilt of his cheeks and the strong line of his jaw. But it was the look in his eyes that sent another thrill of longing through her—the softness of love mingling with a passionate heat that set her pulse to racing. And yet his expression was serious; her Aidan, so careful, and deep of heart as always.

“Are you sure that this is what you want, Gwynne?” he asked softly, as if it was difficult for him to speak. “Heaven help me, but if you need me to stop, this is probably the last time that the power to do so will be left to me.”

“Aye, I am sure,” she answered, reveling in the feeling of him pressed close to her, of his arms on either side of her, enfolding her with his strength. “Are you?” she asked in return, reaching up to brush her finger over the full, sensuous slant of his lips, stifling another moan when he took the tip of it into his mouth and suckled gently.

He released her from that tender assault to murmur, “Aye, love, I am sure.” Breathing in deep, he closed his eyes, kissing her forehead, softly, as if she were sacred to him. “I want to be one with you, Gwynne, as we were always meant to be.”

She smiled and tilted her head up to kiss him again, even as her hands pulled up at his shirt, freeing it from his breeches and tugging it up and over his head. The sun spilled down, tawny on his skin, and she couldn’t resist
running her hands over the warm, muscular expanse of him—across his chest and the strong contours of his ribs, then around to his back, making him groan.

But in the next instant it was her turn to gasp as he retaliated in kind, shifting to loosen her belt and bliaud, undoing the laces and then lifting the dress off her in one smooth movement. Her smock followed soon after, and, breathless, she lay there in the sun, naked before him, feeling strangely shy at being exposed so to him, though she couldn’t remember ever experiencing that emotion when her body had been only a weapon of war.

“You are beautiful, Gwynne,” Aidan murmured, after gazing at her for what seemed an eternity. He reached out, the muscles of his arm and chest rippling with the movement, to drag his fingertip lightly down her throat, continuing on a gentle path between her breasts, so slowly that she ached with the anticipation of his caress.

Her breath caught when he finally slipped his hand sideways to stroke over the creamy swell of her flesh, his touch warm and smooth and sure; he stroked gently, feather-light, leaving delicious shivers of pleasure in his wake. And when he finally cupped her breast in his palm, she choked out a little moan, arching into him and closing her eyes.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered again, leaning down to press soft kisses to her shoulder, her collarbone, the curved birthmark just below. “So beautiful.” His lips continued their path to where his palm rested, finally taking the delicate peak of her breast inside the moist, warm haven of his mouth.

She cried out, then, the throaty sound rising from somewhere deep within her. Threading her fingers through his hair, she held him close, letting him suckle and trail kisses from one breast to the other, loving each in turn. She was gasping by the time he lifted his head; once
she managed to open her eyes and quiet her thundering pulse enough to see what had made him pause, a chill of anxiety wound through her. A tiny frown creased his brow, framing the suddenly dark expression filling his gaze.

“What is wrong?” she whispered, half afraid to hear the answer. Worried that somehow she’d done something amiss in her innocence of this act between men and women.

“What is this?” he asked quietly, nudging her up on her side to reveal a jagged white line that began near her right breast and then dipped down, curving to her hip.

“’Tis a battle scar.” She paused for a moment, puzzled at his reaction. Then, frowning, she twisted her head to meet his gaze. “Surely you’ve seen the like before, Aidan—dozens of them, I’d think, in your years of fighting.”

“Aye, but never on you.”

His voice sounded as tight as his jaw looked, and she tried to roll back to face him, wanting to smooth away the twitch of muscles in his cheek. But he held her still, his scowl deepening as his finger traced a different scar, one that was higher up, she knew, and threaded across her back.

“And this?” he asked, his voice echoing with an even darker emotion than before, as he touched it and several others of similar appearance. “These are lash marks, Gwynne, and I know of no warriors who carry whips as their weapons.”

She paused, the shadows of her past curling up like dark serpents to sting her. “The man who called himself my father did,” she murmured at last, “though only in his battle to make me into a Legend.”

She heard Aidan curse under his breath, and rolling in one swift movement atop him, Gwynne took his face in
her hands. “’Tis of no matter now,” she said, shifting until he was forced to meet her gaze. “That time is over and done. Prince Owain died years ago, well after I was strong enough that he could no longer use such measures against me.”

“He was a barbarian ever to lay a hand on you like that.”

“Aye, and yet he believed he was only using every means available to him to mold the future savior of Wales.”

She shivered, pleasure replacing the remembered pain of those days as Aidan stroked his hands along her sides and down to her hips, holding her tight against him. Reaching down to touch the puckered arrow-scar that marred the smooth expanse of his chest, she said quietly, “It seems that we were both fortunate to have survived his plans for us.” Then, tilting her head, she kissed the whitened flesh and continued across his chest, letting the tip of her tongue dart out to tease the flat of his nipple, hoping to distract him from his darker thoughts.

It seemed to work; before long, Aidan groaned, pressing up into her, and she moved her hips instinctively against him, feeling the coarse-woven cloth of his breeches rasp against her inner thighs, the friction teasing the hot fullness at their juncture. Uttering a low growl, Aidan gripped her by the waist and rolled her beneath him again, cradling her head to kiss her.

Gwynne closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting her hands tangle in the waves of his hair, lost in sensation. She felt his heart beating steady and fast, and she arched up as he kissed a path down her neck again, her nipples tightening into aching points of pure pleasure as they rubbed against his chest.

“Make love to me, Aidan. Let the past go, and live with
me here and now, please…don’t make me wait longer,” she whispered, running her hands from his shoulders, down his sides to his hips, helping him to loosen his breeches and ease them off so that he would be as naked as she. He kicked them aside, and she exulted in the warm, smooth feel of his skin, the rippling of his muscles beneath her touch—the hot length of him pressed against her belly as he shifted and positioned himself over her, preparing to complete this expression of love that had been denied them for so long. But then he paused, locking his gaze with hers.

“I need you to know something, Gwynne,” he said hoarsely, the muscles in his arms flexing and his entire body seeming to strain as he spoke. “I am yours. Yours alone.” He looked into her face, gazing deeply, making her eyes sting with the force of love that she saw there.

“No matter what else happens, in my heart I will always be yours, forever.”

His enigmatic words sent an aching stab through her, but it was soon washed away by another rush of passion as he shifted, bringing their bodies into more delicious, tingling contact.

“I am yours as well, Aidan,” she answered softly, taking in a tremulous breath; she smiled and then kissed him with all the love and passion she felt for him now—with all the yearning that had been locked up inside her for twelve long years, released again by this man who was her second self, the half that completed her. “I will love you always,” she added in a whisper, her voice gone husky.

With a kiss of sweet surrender, he groaned and rocked his hips, sliding against her, his rigid heat rubbing along her slick folds until she moaned aloud at the exquisite sensation. Stroking her hands up around his back, she pulled him closer, arching up into him as he tipped away and then
finally glided deep, burying himself in her; she felt a slight sting at his entry, but it was followed by a flood of pleasure so intense that she feared ’twould overwhelm her senses and leave her unable to breathe.

Tears of joy sprang to her eyes, clouding her vision. “Oh, God, Aidan,” she gasped against his shoulder as they began to move together, their bodies joined in a flowing, sacred rhythm that consecrated everything she felt for him—freeing all that was inside of her in a storm of swirling, starry light. “’Tis so beautiful…I never knew it could be so beautiful…”

“Aye, Gwynne…’tis perfection.” He groaned in blissful agony as he kissed her again and cupped her face gently in his palms. Through her own haze of passion, she was astonished to see the glistening in his eyes as well; he bent down to touch his lips to the dampness of her clumped lashes, the tiny hollow of her temple, the wetness of her cheeks, all as he continued to stroke deeply and smoothly inside of her. “I love you, Gwynne,” he murmured. “God help me, but I’ve loved you for so long…”

Their tempo increased, and she cried out, her body tightening with the overwhelming feelings, the pleasure that was building, spiraling higher in her. She felt Aidan tensing, too, and she clenched her fingers into his back, arching into him again and again as the sensations began to peak, until suddenly she was tipping over the edge of a wondrous cliff.

She sobbed his name into the salty heat of his shoulder at the same time that he stiffened and growled out his own oath of ecstasy, plunging deeper than before, to release a flood of warmth inside her that blended with the dancing sparks of light, a tingling bliss that washed over her body, filling her soul…

Shattering once and for all the protective shell she’d long ago erected around her heart—and healing in that one sweet moment wounds that had been nearly a lifetime in the making.

A
idan rested beside Gwynne, his body spent and his spirit strangely content in a way he couldn’t ever remember feeling before. The caress of the sun, the sounds of the woodland around them—the very scent of the breeze seemed more intense than it had just a few hours ago.

’Twas because of her, he knew. He and Gwynne had come full circle at last, pledging themselves with their bodies as they’d done so long ago with their hearts. The feeling it left him with was difficult to describe, almost as if the missing part of him—the part that had been gone for so long that he’d begun not to notice its absence—had finally been returned. ’Twas a gift. A sacred, precious gift, that he was loath to give up.

And he needn’t just yet, he reasoned. Not just yet.

The familiar ache lanced through him anyway, despite his attempts to fool himself. He was here with Gwynne on borrowed time. He knew that better than anyone. But God, how could he give her up again?

She stirred where she lay next to him, sighing and stretching like a cat in the sunshine. Rolling up onto his side to face her, he pulled her toward him, and she stretched again, pressing herself flush against his body and causing delicious twinges of desire to jab through him anew. Her eyes were closed, though the smile curving the lush, kiss-softened curve of her lips told him that she was as satisfied as he was.

“So that is what all the excitement is about, is it?” she murmured, opening her eyes to gaze at him with a playful intimacy that took his breath away.

He smiled back at her, running his hand lazily along the powerful, silky length of her side. “What do you mean?”

She arched one brow, teasing him with the look, and he felt an answering warmth bloom in his belly, twitching down to his groin, though he’d have sworn just a moment ago that the explosiveness of their climax had rendered him incapable of stirring again for a very long time.

Her eyes sparkled. “I mean that I’ve often heard my men discussing their attraction to various women—details of their dalliances and the like, when they thought I couldn’t hear them. But I always wondered what they found so compelling about the act, that it would occupy their thoughts so continuously.” Her smile curved deeper, her gaze more mischievous. “Now I know.”

Aidan laughed in response, stroking his fingers down her arm and taking her hand in his. “Well, I’m glad it met with your approval.”

“Not it, Aidan.
You
.”

“Ah, then I stand corrected,” he murmured, experiencing an unaccountable surge of joy at her compliment. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “I feel the same, you know.”

She flushed, dropping her gaze to the crumpled grass.
“I wasn’t sure if you would, considering my inexperience and your…well, your obvious—”

“Skill? Knowledge? Unsurpassed mastery, perhaps?” He grinned as she ripped up a handful of grass and threw it at him.

“Lechery, more like,” she muttered, laughing as she rolled to reach for her smock and pull it on over her head. Then she stretched out again next to him.

He found himself laughing too as he brushed the bits of grass from his hair; swiftly donning his breeches, he resumed his position beside her, intertwining his hand in hers as they stared up at the blue canopy of the sky. They’d lain just like this on their betrothal day, he thought, his heart throbbing almost painfully as he turned to her, taking in her breathtaking beauty, that powerful elegance of her that blended into the natural setting around them, seemingly as effortlessly as the sparrows that swooped and chirped high above them.

And he found himself praying with every ounce of strength in him that this moment would never end.

Gwynne breathed deep where she rested next to Aidan, smiling up at the antics of the birds before closing her eyes and just soaking in the warmth of the sun, the gentle weight of his hand clasped in her own. It felt so right, so good, being with him here like this. Like it was meant to be. Her only regret was that it had taken so long to come to this place again in their lives. So many years of wasted time…

But that was all in the past now. She was Aidan’s and he was hers. They’d shown each other their deepest feelings, shared the most intimate part of themselves. A few shadows lurked, still, she knew—she needed to confront Marrok. And she didn’t know how she was going to reconcile her role as battle leader of her people with all of the
truths she’d just learned about herself and her past. But that would come later. Later, once she and Aidan had worked out the details of rebuilding their life together, as they’d planned from the start.

“Aidan?” she murmured, her cheeks flushing as she stroked her thumb along the strong, sensual length of his palm, remembering how his hands had felt on her—those hands that were powerful enough to match her, swing for swing, in battle, yet still tender enough to caress her into a fever-pitch of mindless ecstasy.

“Aye?”

“What will we do, now, about the dissolution of our betrothal?” she asked, feeling a little shy at her boldness, but needing to know how they would go about making things right between them. “The process of ending our union must be almost complete, if ’tis not finished already. Will we need to betroth ourselves again, or can the entire action still be stopped?”

She felt Aidan stiffen next to her. He went so completely still that even his breathing seemed to cease for one awful moment, and she swiveled her head to look at him, filled with concern.

“Aidan?” She sat up, a heavy dread settling in her middle. “What is it?” she asked, keeping her gaze fixed on him as he slowly sat up as well, the muscles at the flat of his belly rippling with the movement. He wouldn’t look at her at first; his jaw seemed painfully rigid, and he just stared down at the ground, at the wide area of grass that was crushed from their lovemaking.

“I need to tell you something, Gwynne,” he said finally.

“I had to remain silent until your memory returned—and God knows I wish I never needed to say it at all—but ’tis clear that there can be no more delay now, whether I wish it or nay.”

Another wave of dread hammered into her. He sounded
so resigned. Resolute. Like a doomed man uttering his last words. Her back ached, she was holding herself so tightly. “What is it?” she repeated, though her mouth felt as dry as dust.

He closed his eyes, his cheek twitching again. Then he breathed in deep, holding in the air for a moment before letting it out in a sigh as he swung his gaze at last to her.

“I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Gwynne. There is no need to try to stop the dissolution of our betrothal, because there never was an agreement between us to break. Not legally, anyway.”

“What?” The word slipped past her throat on a horrified whisper, and the world suddenly narrowed to a pinprick, shutting out the sun, the trees, the humming of the insects around them, the breeze, soft against her skin—closing out everything but the sight of Aidan’s face, so grim and anguished before her.

“I never wanted to mislead you, Gwynne, I swear, but I could think of no other way to get you back to England with me.” He reached out and took her hand, but she barely felt his touch for the numbness that was spreading through her. “You must believe me. I had no other choice but to use this falsehood if I wanted to keep you safe.”

“But ’twas real, Aidan.” She scowled with confusion, looking all around them. “We pledged ourselves right here, in our circle of stones, just before the attack. ’Twas no falsehood; I remember it all. It happened—you know it did!”

“Aye, it happened.” He glanced away, his gaze tormented, as if he couldn’t bear what he was saying. “But to the rest of the world it might as well not have. ’Tis not legal, Gwynne; not to anyone else. Hand fasting is not enough to make a union binding among members of the nobility. And there were no documents signed, no witnesses to the pledge.”

Her shock receded, suddenly, under a wave of nausea. “None but us,” she murmured, and Aidan closed his eyes again, wincing as if he’d been struck.

With a slow, even motion, she removed her hand from his clasp, tucking it into her lap. A hot aching had begun behind her eyes, and she frowned, swallowing hard, trying to find the words she needed to say to him. “Then all this—” she murmured, swallowing again and trying to maintain her composure, “—all these weeks that I’ve lived at Dunston with you—they’ve been naught but an amusement for you? If there was never a true betrothal to dissolve, then there was no reason for me to—”

“Nay, there was a reason,” he said, looking back to her.

“I owe you my life, Gwynne, and you deserved to have yours back as well. I needed a way to have you near me, to help you remember, so that you could know for yourself what the Welsh rebels had done to you. So that you could decide what to do with your own future, with the full knowledge that they had denied you after the attack.”

“My
own
future…” she echoed dumbly, the pain seeping in more, spreading to cripple her very bones, it seemed, with the excruciating burden of it.
Her
future, he’d said. Not theirs together. Hers. Alone.
Oh, God
…

“Then your betrothal to Helene…?” She barely managed to breathe out the woman’s name, for the choking, aching sensation that filled her throat. She searched Aidan’s gaze, desperate to see some sign to tell her that their lovemaking had meant something to him. That it had been more than just a physical consummation after a twelve-year intrusion…that he yearned to share his life with her as much as she wanted to be with him.

But his expression remained flat, his eyes sad. So sad and resigned.
Oh, sweet God in heaven, no
…

“My wedding to Helene will take place as planned, three weeks from now,” he answered quietly, sounding as
if the declaration was being wrenched from him, word by bloody word. “I have no choice, Gwynne. There are things that happened in the years you were away that are forcing me now to go through with this marriage; ’tis not what I wish, but it is my duty and the way it must be.”

“Nay…” she mumbled, shaking her head and scooting back away from him when he tried to reach out to her. Lurching to her feet, she swung her head in frantic search of her gown and belt. She spotted them and took them up, even as Aidan sprang to his feet as well.

“Gwynne, please…if you’ll only let me explain, I can—”

“What in
Lugh’s
name is this?”

Gwynne froze at the familiar voice. Still clutching her bliaud in a death-grip, she turned toward the sound. Her head throbbed, and her body felt stiff, still filled with pleasurable aching from her recent lovemaking with Aidan as she faced her cousin, Lucan. Owin and Dafydd flanked him on either side, but while Lucan looked like an enraged bull, ready to charge, her bodyguards seemed embarrassed to have come upon her and Aidan like this. Owin coughed and looked away, and Dafydd’s ears glowed scarlet, his large form unmoving as Lucan strode further into the clearing.

Her cousin’s gaze swept from her, clad only in her shift, to Aidan, who stood behind her, bare-chested and with his breeches barely laced. Dragging his glare back to her again, Lucan growled, “Traitorous whore.”

Aidan took a step forward at that, danger emanating from every powerful inch of his body. “Words like those could get a man killed.”

“Stay out of this, Aidan,” Gwynne murmured, keeping her gaze focused on Lucan. “I’ll handle my cousin myself.”

“Aye,
cousin
,” Lucan repeated. “Though I never be
lieved I’d live long enough to see any kin of mine whoring herself to a damned Englishman.”

“You go too far, Lucan,” Gwynne snapped, her anger rising enough to eclipse, at least a bit, the agonizing hurt that had been pounding relentless at her heart.

“I could go much farther, and you know it,” he growled. “’Twas only chance that my father was out on scouting patrol and didn’t receive the parchment you sent to him; ’tis more than obvious now that the maidenly reticence contained in your message is naught but a lie.”

A muted pulse of heat beat into Gwynne’s face, making her cheeks flame, not only with the shame of his accusation, but with the knowledge that her actions here today had done nothing to prove him wrong.

“
Lugh’s
bones,” he continued, “your orders were only to tempt the Englishman, not to—”

“That’s enough,” she broke in, stepping in front of Aidan as if it might somehow keep the diatribe from his hearing.

Lucan’s expression shifted, his face taking on a sharper cast as his glance slipped to Aidan again. “Ah—what’s the matter, cousin? Doesn’t the Englishman know?”

“Know what?” Aidan ground out, moving as well to stand next to her.

“That your willing captive was under orders to seduce you,” Lucan said, obviously relishing the disclosure.

“That she was told to use her feminine wiles to lull you into a false sense of security.” He jerked his head to indicate their partially clothed forms. “Apparently she decided to take it a bit farther than that.”

Aidan froze beside her, and Lucan raised his brow, shifting his gaze back to her, his expression more malevolent than any Gwynne had ever seen him wear openly toward her. “Go ahead, cousin,” he challenged, mocking her. “Tell your lover all about it.”

“It wasn’t like that, Aidan,” she murmured, the sick feeling inside her swelling with every new moment.

“Is it true or not?” Aidan asked quietly. “Were you commanded to do what you did…what
we
did, today and before?”

She clenched her jaw at the hurt she heard in his voice. “Nay,” she said, “I mean aye, I was ordered to try to tempt you, but that is not why I—”

“I think what my cousin is trying to say is that she was never commanded to rut with you, Englishman. That part she did all on her own.”

“Go to hell, Lucan,” Gwynne growled, finally swinging away from Aidan to round on her cousin, itching for the old comfort of her sword at her waist.

Lucan backed off, but only slightly, giving her a sneering look as he did. “In good time, dear cousin—in good time. But before then, I intend to ensure that our people learn just what kind of traitor their
Legend
has turned out to be.”